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February 15, 2014

"Healthcare Not Handcuffs": Will ACA help end the drug war?

The title and question of this post is my take on this notable recent report from the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance titled "Healthcare Not Handcuffs: Putting the Affordable Care Act to Work for Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Reform." Here is an excerpt from the report's introduction:

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the most significant expansion of healthcare coverage in generations, and there is almost no area of the U.S. healthcare system that is not impacted by the reform in some way. Even as debate about the ACA continues, it is now the law of the land, and implementation is fully under way. For criminal justice reform and drug policy reform advocates, the ACA represents a remarkable opportunity to advance efforts to end both mass incarceration and the criminalization-based approach to drug policy often known as the War on Drugs.

Under the ACA, tens of millions of people in the United States will gain healthcare coverage for a broad array of health services and conditions, including, for the first time, substance use and mental health disorders. Of course, there are also problems with the ACA and its implementation, not the least of which is that millions of people will remain uninsured even after the law is fully operational. Yet even with these challenges, the ACA sets the stage for a new health-oriented policy framework to address substance use and mental health disorders -- health problems that have been largely relegated to the criminal justice system for more than 40 years.

This is an enormous paradigm shift that has yet to fully register with criminal justice and drug policy reform advocates, let alone with health policy advocates and the general public. The financial benefits of providing substance use disorder treatment instead of incarceration are well established. But by fully incorporating substance use and mental health disorders into healthcare -- by truly treating them as health issues and requiring public and private insurance plans to cover their treatment -- the ACA creates an opening and financial incentives to shift drug policy into a public health framework, undermining the rationale for a criminal justice approach....

The passage and implementation of the ACA coincides with the growing momentum across the political spectrum to end the War on Drugs, reverse the incarceration boom, and abandon criminal justice policies that have resulted in the criminalization of whole communities. But the paradigmatic shift from criminalization to health will not occur unless criminal justice and drug policy reform advocates seize the moment and leverage the ACA to realize its full transformative potential.

To assist advocates in navigating this new terrain, this paper outlines some of the major provisions of the ACA immediately relevant to criminal justice and drug policy reform (Part One), and then explores specific applications of those provisions, including program and policy examples and suggested action steps (Part Two)....

This is a unique, perhaps even once-in-a-lifetime scenario for criminal justice and drug policy reform advocates: with the ACA, we can start to build true alternatives to the criminal justice response to substance use, the enforcement of which has fundamentally undermined community health and safety. Addressing substance use as a health condition has the potential to lower health costs, dramatically reduce the number of people involved in the criminal justice system, and improve health outcomes and overall wellbeing for millions of people.

February 14, 2014

Series of thoughtful posts on faith-based prisons

Sasha Volokh this week has done an effective series of informative posts on what we know and do not know about faith-based prisons. The final one is available at this link, and it starts and ends this way:

This is the final post in a series on the effectiveness of faith-based prison programs, based on my recent Alabama Law Review article, Do Faith-Based Prisons Work? (Short answer: no.) Monday’s post introduced the issue, Tuesday’s post surveyed some of the least valid studies, Wednesday’s post critiqued the studies that used propensity score matching and discussed other possible empirical strategies, and Thursday’s post talked about the most valid studies–those that used rejected volunteers as a control group.

Throughout, I’ve been putting the faith-based prison research side-by-side with the private schools research, because evaluations of each raise similar methodological problems. The fact that both are voluntary means that they can attract fundamentally different sorts of people, so their good results might be attributable to the higher-quality participants they attract. Today’s post ties the ends together and asks whether there’s any way forward for faith-based prisons....

Let’s take the broad view and come back to the education studies that I’ve been using as a point of comparison throughout this Article. Finally, after decades of research, we have some credible studies estimating the effect of private schools. The best evidence, taken from studies comparing accepted and rejected applicants, indicates that private schools do have a positive effect on the students who attend them, at least for black students and at least for math scores.

On the one hand, one can observe that, next to these results (modest as they are), it’s all the more disappointing that faith-based prisons haven’t shown much in the way of significant positive effects. But on the other hand, it took decades of research and debate by different groups, each using a slightly different empirical approach — and many finding little to no effect — before we got even the mild results we have on private education. This suggests that we should encourage more research on the matter, in different contexts, using a variety of different empirical techniques.

The result is that, if there’s no strong reason to believe that faith-based prisons work at all, and even less reason to believe that they work better than comparably funded secular programs, there’s also little reason to believe that they don’t work, and in many cases they may be the only available alternative. It’s probably sensible to allow such programs to operate and to allow the process of experimentation to work its course, provided that all this can be done constitutionally.

As reported in this lengthy new Denver Post article, headlined "Feds give historic green light to banks working with marijuana businesses," today brought another remarkable and remarkably important new development in the arena of marijuana law, policy and reform. Here are the basics:

Banks were given a green light Friday to offer services to the legal marijuana industry, but must continue to report any suspicious activity specific to that industry to federal authorities.

The historic step brings marijuana businesses closer to legitimacy in states where pot is already legal, but it falls short of the legislative action many banks want to see before doing business with marijuana operators. That will be up to Congress to consider.

In a joint statement, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said the move gives "greater financial transparency" to an industry that remains illegal in nearly every state. It also makes clear that banks would be helping law enforcement with "information that is particularly valuable" in filing regular reports that offer insights about how marijuana businesses work.

"Law enforcement will now have greater insight into marijuana business activity generally," FinCEN said in a news release, "and will be able to focus on activity that presents high-priority concerns." Banks currently must file a suspicious activity report any time they suspect a transaction has a drug connection. Under the new guidance, banks would have three tiers of SARs specific to marijuana businesses dependent on levels of concern.... The marijuana-specific reports are either "marijuana limited," "marijuana priority," and "marijuana termination," which identifies the business as operating normally or having some measure of truly suspicious activity.

Colorado-based U.S. Attorney John Walsh said the guidance clarifies how law enforcement and banking will approach what's been a sticky issue. The "guidance seeks to mitigate the public safety concerns created by high-volume cash-based businesses without access to banking and the financial system, while at the same time ensuring that criminal organizations, gangs and drug cartels do not have access to the financial system to launder criminal proceeds," Walsh said in a statement.

Colorado and Washington are the only states to allow legal recreational marijuana sales while 20 about others allow medical marijuana. "Now that some states have elected to legalize and regulate the marijuana trade, FinCEN seeks to move from the shadows the historically covert financial operations of marijuana businesses," FinCEN director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said in a statement.... "Clearly it is possible to provide financial services to state-regulated marijuana businesses and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act requirements," the FinCEN official said.

The fledgling industry saw a lack of banking and credit card services — not all are without it, though most are — as its most serious problem, particularly because it essentially forced those businesses into a cash-only system. That made for ripe targets and worried business owners, law enforcement and patrons.

Colorado's medical marijuana industry last year contributed more than $9 million in state sales tax revenues — all of it banked at JPMorgan Chase, one of three to hold a contract for state deposits. Although JPM happily accepts state funds derived from recreational marijuana proceeds, it will not say whether the government's announcement will induce it to bank with those businesses directly.

The latest guidance, as with three previous memos issued by the Justice Department, doesn't carry the same force as law, and bankers are quick to point that out. ...

Mike Elliott, the executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, a trade organization for cannabis stores, said his group is happy the federal government saw the need for marijuana businesses to have banking services. But Elliott said the memo shouldn't be the final word and said federal law still must be changed to give banks greater confidence in working with the industry. "These memos certainly help and provide some cover but ultimately do not solve all the problems," Elliott said. "So I think we're waiting here to see what the banks' reactions are."

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) is issuing guidance to clarify Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) expectations for financial institutions seeking to provide services to marijuana-related businesses. FinCEN is issuing this guidance in light of recent state initiatives to legalize certain marijuana-related activity and related guidance by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) concerning marijuana-related enforcement priorities. This FinCEN guidance clarifies how financial institutions can provide services to marijuana-related businesses consistent with their BSA obligations, and aligns the information provided by financial institutions in BSA reports with federal and state law enforcement priorities. This FinCEN guidance should enhance the availability of financial services for, and the financial transparency of, marijuana-related businesses.

"The Marriage of State Law and Individual Rights and a New Limit on the Federal Death Penalty"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new article by Jonathan Ross now available on SSRN. This piece seems especially timely not only in light of lower federal courts extending recent SCOTUS marriage precedents, but also with the Boston Bomber federal capital case taking place in a state without the death penalty. Here is the abstract:

Since the 1990s, federal prosecutors have, with increasing frequency, sought the death penalty for federal offenses committed in and also punishable under the laws of non-death penalty states. This phenomenon has troubled federalism proponents, who have pointed out that federal prosecutors can use the federal death penalty to circumvent a state's decision to abolish capital punishment. Drawing on these scholars' works, defendants have argued that state law shields them from federal punishment. Courts have almost unanimously rejected such arguments, holding that state law cannot preclude the administration of federal punishment for federal offenses.

This article proposes a novel basis for a challenge to the federal death penalty's use in a non-death penalty state - the Supreme Court's reasoning in United States v. Windsor. In Windsor, the Court held that federal interference with a state law right arising in an area traditionally regulated by states is subject to heightened scrutiny under the Due Process Clause. This article argues that, in some instances, Windsor precludes federal capital prosecutions.

This article considers a Windsor-based motion to dismiss a notice of intent to seek the federal death penalty. The federal capital prosecution in a non-death penalty state interferes with a state law right to not be executed. As states have traditionally prosecuted violent murders, this right arises in an area traditionally regulated by states. Applying due process scrutiny, a court should ask whether a prosecutor's animus towards the state's lack of capital punishment motivated the prosecution in the first place, or whether there is an independent federal interest. If animus alone motivated the prosecution, then Windsor demands that the court reject the attempt to seek capital punishment.

February 13, 2014

As reported in this new AP article, the "U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said Thursday that it's appealing a sentence that included no prison time for the billionaire creator of Beanie Babies for hiding at least $25 million from U.S. tax authorities in Swiss bank accounts." Here is more:

At H. Ty Warner's sentencing last month, Judge Charles Kocoras heaped praise on the toymaker for his charitable giving, declaring society was better served by letting him go free and giving him two years' probation instead of sending him to prison. Warner had faced up to five years in prison.

Warner, 69, of Oak Brook, Ill., was one of the highest profile figures snared in a long-running investigation of Americans concealing funds in Swiss bank accounts. Others convicted of squirreling away less money in Switzerland than Warner have done prison time. Warner, who grew up poor, created the animal-shaped Beanie Babies in the mid-'90s, triggering a craze that made Warner spectacularly rich. Forbes recently estimated his net worth at $2.6 billion.

A one-page notice of appeal signed by U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon was filed with the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and a full brief will be submitted later. Justice officials in Washington still must OK the appeal, but that's usually considered a formality.

At a Jan. 14 sentencing hearing, Kocoras spent most of his 20-minute explanation of the sentence expressing admiration for Warner. He also said the businessman had already paid a price in "public humiliation." In addition to probation, Kocoras ordered Warner to do 500 hours of community service at Chicago high schools. Earlier, Warner agreed to pay $27 million in back taxes and interest, and a civil penalty of more than $53 million....

During sentencing, assistant government attorney Michelle Petersen urged Kocoras to put Warner behind bars for at least a year. "(Without prison time), tax evasion becomes little more than a bad investment," she told him. "The perception cannot be that a wealthy felon can just write a check and not face further punishment."

This should be a VERY interesting sentencing appeal to watch in the months ahead, and I am already super stoked to read the coming Seventh Circuit briefs from the parties concerning what will surely be differing views on what federal sentencing law demands in a case of this nature.

"Is possession of child pornography a crime worthy of years in prison?"

The question in the title of this post is the sub-headline of this new Jacob Sullum piece at Reason.com. The piece starts by talking through the recent Paroline argument concerning restitution punishments for child porn downloaders and then moves to these comments:

As a result of congressional edicts, the average sentence in federal child porn cases that do not involve production rose from 54 months in 2004 to 95 months in 2010, according to a 2012 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Under federal law, receiving child pornography, which could mean viewing or downloading a single image, triggers a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. Federal sentencing guidelines recommend stiff enhancements based on factors that are extremely common, such as using a computer, swapping photos, or possessing more than 600 images (with each video counted as 75 images). The maximum penalty is 20 years....

When the Supreme Court upheld bans on possession of child pornography in 1989, its main rationale was that demand for this material encourages its production, which necessarily involves the abuse of children. But this argument has little relevance now that people who look at child pornography typically get it online for free. Furthermore, people who possess "sexually obscene images of children" — production of which need not entail abuse of any actual children — face the same heavy penalties.

Another rationale for criminalizing possession of child pornography, mentioned by the sentencing commission in its report, is that these images "validate and normalize the sexual exploitation of children." Yet the same could be said of explicit arguments in favor of sex with minors, which nevertheless enjoy First Amendment protection.

Even if you agree that possessing child pornography should be a crime, the current penalty structure is clearly out of whack. Something is seriously wrong with a justice system in which people who look at images of child rape can be punished more severely than people who rape children.

Two physicians highlight why medical science makes it important to re-schedule marijuana

Orrin Devinsky and Daniel Friedman, two physicians at the NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, provide an informative and sober discussion of medical marijuana issues and research problems in this New York Times op-ed headlined "We Need Proof on Marijuana." Here are excerpts:

Many people have heard the story of Charlotte Figi, a young girl from Colorado with severe epilepsy. After her parents began giving her a marijuana strain rich in cannabidiol (CBD), the major nonpsychoactive ingredient in marijuana, Charlotte reportedly went from having hundreds of seizures per week to only two or three per month. Previously, her illness, Dravet Syndrome, was a daily torture despite multiple high doses of powerful anti-seizure drugs.

As news of Charlotte’s story moved from the Internet to a CNN story by Dr. Sanjay Gupta to Facebook pages, some families of children with similar disorders moved to Colorado, which recently legalized marijuana, to reap what they believe are the benefits of the drug.

Dozens of other anecdotes of miraculous responses to marijuana treatments in children with severe epilepsy are rife on Facebook and other social media, and these reports have aroused outsize hopes and urgent demands. Based on such reports, patients and parents are finding official and backdoor ways to give marijuana to their children.

But scientific studies have yet to bear out the hopes of these desperate families. The truth is we lack evidence not only for the efficacy of marijuana, but also for its safety. This concern is especially relevant in children, for whom there is good evidence that marijuana use can increase the risk of serious psychiatric disorders and long-term cognitive problems.

The recent wave of state legislatures considering and often approvingmedical marijuana raises significant concerns. By allowing marijuana therapy for patients with diseases such as difficult-to-control epilepsy, are state legislatures endorsing the medical benefits and safety of a broad range of marijuana species and strains before they have been carefully tested and vetted? Marijuana contains around 80 cannabinoids (THC is the major psychoactive cannabinoid, largely responsible for the high) and more than 400 other compounds. The chemical composition of two genetically identical plants can vary based on growing conditions, soil content, parasites and many other factors.

While the language of the legislation may be cautious, there is an implied endorsement of medical benefit for marijuana when a legislature passes a bill and a governor signs it into law, and the tremendous gaps in our knowledge are not effectively conveyed to the public....

Before more children are exposed to potential risks, before more desperate families uproot themselves and spend their life savings on unproven miracle marijuana cures, we need objective data from randomized placebo-controlled trials....

Paradoxically, however, as state governments increasingly make “medical” marijuana available to parents to give to their children, the federal government continues to label the nonpsychoactive CBD — as well as THC — as Schedule 1 drugs. Such drugs are said to have “no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse.” This designation hamstrings doctors from performing controlled studies. While it is possible to study Schedule 1 drugs in a controlled laboratory setting, it is extremely difficult to study these substances in patients. For our study, we keep the CBD in a 1,200-pound safe in a locked room, in a building with an alarm system.

To foster research, we need to change compounds derived from marijuana from Schedule 1 to a less restrictive category. It is troubling that while few barriers exist for parents to give their children marijuana in Colorado, there are significant federal roadblocks preventing doctors from studying it in a rigorous scientific manner.

When patients have not been able to get successful medical treatment, and they live in a state where the law allows medical marijuana for children — we are not suggesting they smoke the drug — compassionate use is reasonable. But for the long-term health of Charlotte and other patients like her, we urgently need valid data.

Trio of former governors to get behind initiative to reform California's dysfunctional death penalty

As reported in this Los Angeles Times article, "three former California governors are set to announce their endorsement Thursday of a proposed initiative sponsors say would end lengthy death penalty appeals and speed up executions." Here is more:

Former governors George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis will announce at a news conference the launch of an initiative drive for signatures to qualify the proposed constitutional amendment for the November ballot.

The measure, if qualified, would ignite the second statewide debate on the death penalty in two years. A ballot proposal that would have ended capital punishment in California narrowly lost in 2012, with 48% of voters in favor and 52% against.

The new proposal would establish five-year court deadlines for deciding death row appeals, transfer most death penalty cases from the California Supreme Court to lower courts, and allow capital inmates to be spread among the general prison population. It also would require the condemned to work in prison, remove any threat of state sanctions from doctors who advise the state on lethal injection procedures, and exempt the execution protocols from a state administrative law that requires extensive public review.

California now has more than 700 people on death row, and the last inmate was executed in 2006. The state currently has no court-approved method of lethally injecting the condemned, and drugs to do so have been difficult to obtain. The state also has had trouble recruiting lawyers willing to handle capital appeals, which can take decades to be resolved in state and federal courts.

I am hoping this capital reform initiative makes the California ballot given that a majority of Californians have voted to retain the death penalty in the state. I have to believe that California voters do not want to preserve the distinctly dysfunction death penalty system it now has, and this initiative would appear to be the most efficient and effective means to make the state's system more functional.

If this capital reform initiative makes the California ballot, it will also be interesting to see how California's current governor and attorney general will chime in on the issue. My sense is that Gov Brown and AG Harris are generally opposed to an active capital punishment system, and thus they may be disinclined to support the initiative. But it should be hard for them to explain to voters why the support a dysfunction capital punishment system over a functional one.

February 12, 2014

Will (and should) former mayor Ray Nagin get a sentence making it likely he dies in federal prison after his corruption convictions?

The question in the title of this post is the first sentencing question that came to mind upon hearing this criminal justice news from a Louisiana federal court this afternoon:

Ray Nagin, the former two-term mayor of New Orleans indicted after he left office, was convicted Wednesday of 20 federal corruption charges for illegal dealings with city vendors, dating back to 2004. A jury delivered its verdict just before 1 p.m., after six hours of deliberations that followed a nine-day trial.

Nagin, 57, joins a list of Louisiana elected officials convicted of misdeeds while in office, but he is New Orleans' first mayor to be convicted of public corruption. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he could face a 20-year prison term, possibly more, lawyers have said.

In a case that relied heavily on the testimony of businessmen-turned-convicts -- and a paper trail that showed money changing hands and lucrative city contracts doled out -- prosecutors described a public official "on the take." Nagin was an opportunist who pursued businessmen under pressure to get government work, targeting them to line his own pockets, prosecutors said....

Nagin was somber and silent as he made his way through a crush of reporters outside of the courthouse -- a far cry from the confidence he showed when he first arrived more than two weeks ago at the start of his trial. Addressing the press, Jenkins said, "Obviously, I'm surprised. Now we're moving on to the appeal process."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Coman, the lead prosecutor on the case, gave a brief statement. "We are pleased with the verdict and obviously we are very thankful to the jury and the court," he said....

Nagin, a Democrat, was the public face of the city during Hurricane Katrina, making national headlines as he lambasted the federal government for its response to the storm and subsequent flood.

He lives in Frisco, Texas, where he has avoided the spotlight, staying quiet save for an occasional tweet, since his indictment a year ago. Sentencing is set for June 11 before U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan.

As the title of this post suggests, I would urge now-convicted Nagin to urge his lawyers to get very focused on the federal sentencing process before they start "moving on to the appeal process." As the article above notes, federal prosecutors are likely to argue that the guidelines applicable here recommend a sentence of decades for Nagin, and judges within the Fifth Circuit tend to be drawn toward imposing within guidelines sentences. Ergo, unless and until Nagin's lawyers start developing some strong sentencing arguments on his behalf, the former mayor of New Orleans may be looking at the real possibility that he gets a federal prison sentence later this year that amounts to a functional life sentence.

"High Times, Westword sue Colorado over marijuana ad restrictions"

The title of this post is the headline of this interesting new report on the latest notable legal frontier concerning marijuana law and reforms. Here are the basics:

The publisher of marijuana magazine High Times has sued the state of Colorado in federal court over the state’s rules preventing recreational cannabis businesses from advertising in most publications. High Times, along with local weekly magazine Westword, filed the lawsuit on Monday. It marks the first time anyone has challenged the restrictions in court.

The rules allow recreational marijuana businesses to advertise only in publications that are adult-oriented. According to the state’s rules, recreational marijuana stores can advertise only in a publication that “has reliable evidence that no more than 30 percent of the publication’s readership is reasonably expected to be under the age of 21.” There is no such restriction on medical marijuana businesses.

The lawsuit argues the rules, which also restrict television, radio and outdoor advertising, are an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. The magazines are “chilled from soliciting advertisements from prospective clients and prevented from making revenue from clients who wish to engage in advertising concerning marijuana-related products and services,” the lawsuit’s complaint states....

It is also unclear how the suit’s filing in federal court will impact the judge’s assessment of its claim that the ads concern “lawful activity,” since marijuana is illegal federally. But publications have previously had success in federal court in overturning another Colorado marijuana law — one that required marijuana-themed publications to be kept behind the counter at stores.

Two recent local sentencing stories from Tennessee reporting on two different federal judges imposing reduced sentences in drug cases suggest that all the on-going talk about significant drug sentencing reform coming from the US Sentencing Commission and the US Senate is already impacting the work of federal judges. Here are the headlines, links and basics:

Federal Judge Sandy Mattice, calling the "War on Drugs" a "dismal failure," on Monday morning varied downward on a sentence for a drug "smurf."

Larry Gertsman had been facing a minimum 121 months in federal prison for his role in obtaining pseudoephedrine pills for a meth cook and for the fact a gun was found at the trailer where the meth was being cooked.

Judge Mattice noted the 121 months was one month more time than he gave to the meth cook, George Alder Jr. He sentenced Gertsman to 90 months in prison.

Judge Mattice said, "When a conspiracy is charged like this, addicts are being prosecuted the same way as the manufacturer." He said some of the sentencing schemes have "outrageous results." He added, "These cases seem increasingly arbitrary."

Federal Judge Curtis Collier, saying that he expects Congress to lower sentences for drug defendants, on Thursday gave reduced time to three Whitwell residents involved in a major marijuana operation.

Judge Collier, focusing on "sentencing disparity," said Congress seems headed for passage of the Smarter Sentencing Act. He said it has the endorsement of the Department of Justice and support from senators from different political backgrounds. He also said the federal Sentencing Commission has issued guidelines for reduced drug sentences. The act would shift the focus to putting away hardcore and violent defendants in federal prisons.

Judge Collier said sponsors of the bill say that under current sentencing all of the Department of Justice budget is going to be eaten up by the cost to operate federal prisons. The act would basically cut drug sentences in half and also increase the use of the "safety valve" to cut time on mandatory sentences. There was also discussion at the sentencing for Jackie Morrison, Sammy Nance and Ollie Frizzell about some states, including Colorado, legalizing marijuana.

The sentencing range for the ringleader, Morrison, was 121-151 months. He got 72 months. Nance faced 37-46 months and was given 24 months. Ms. Frizzell had a sentencing range of 27-33 months and got 30 months. However, she had already gotten a break for cooperating with the government.

In addition to wondering if there is some special reason that these two notable stories emerge from two different Tennessee federal courts over the last few days, I am especially curious to know if similar trends may be emerging in other federal district courts around the nation.

I have previously noted that early statistics from the US Sentencing Commission suggested that the number of judge-sponsored below-guideline sentences may be increasing ever since AG Eric Holder gave his big ABA speech last August about excessive use of incarceration for low-level offenders. And now that the USSC has called for an across-the-board reduction of all the drug guidelines and the Senate Judiciary Committee has moved the Smarter Sentencing Act, I could readily imagine that what these two Tennessee federal judges have done is more the norm than the exception in the thousands of low-level drug cases being prosecuted now in federal courts.

Earlier this week, the Heritage Foundation published this effective and informative Legal Memorandum titled "Reconsidering Mandatory Minimum Sentences: The Arguments for and Against Potential Reforms." I plan to have the students in my Sentencing class read this memo, which was authored by Evan Bernick and Paul Larkin, because it provides a very timely review of the arguments surrounding the leading modern reform proposals. And here are the "key points" highlighted by the authors in conjunction with the memo:

The U.S. Senate is considering two bills that would revise the federal sentencing laws in the case of mandatory minimum sentences.

The Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 expands the existing sentencing “safety valve” by allowing a judge to depart downward from any mandatory minimum “if the court finds that it is necessary to do so in order to avoid imposing” an unjust sentence.

The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013 applies only to nonviolent drug crimes and would permit a district judge to issue sentences without regard to any mandatory minimum if the court finds that the defendant meets certain criminal history requirements and did not commit a disqualifying offense.

Although the Smarter Sentencing Act takes a smaller step than the Safety Valve Act toward the revision of the federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws, such a measured approach could enhance federal sentencing policy while avoiding a number of potential pitfalls.

February 11, 2014

Washington Gov declares moratorium on executions during his term

As reported in this new Seattle Times article, headlined "Inslee halts executions in state while he is governor," in the Evergreen State the Governor has decided to use his clemency power to create a (temporary?) moratorium on executions. Here are the basics:

Gov. Jay Inslee is calling a moratorium on executions while he is governor. “Equal justice under the law is the state’s primary responsibility,” Inslee said during a news conference Tuesday morning. “And in death penalty cases, I’m not convinced equal justice is being served.”

Inslee said there was “too much at stake” in death penalty cases in what he termed an “imperfect system.” Inslee cited the high cost of trials and appeals, the apparent randomness in which death penalties are pursued and concerns that executions do not deter crime as reasons for his decision. Inslee said he is not asking the state Legislature to abolish the death penalty.

“As governor, it is on my shoulders to come up with a decision for our whole state,” Inslee said. “I have made a decision. It is not an easy one.”

There are currently nine men on Washington’s death row. He said that if a death penalty case crosses his desk for action, he will issue a reprieve, which will potentially only be in effect while Inslee is governor. He said he does not intend to commute any death sentences. “The citizens of the state of Washington can be assured the men of death row will be in prison for as long as they live,” he said.

When questioned, Inslee acknowledged the moratorium may not necessarily save money, particularly since appeals will still likely be filed. However, the move could prompt county prosecutors to not seek the death penalty in some cases, thus realizing some savings....

“Washington’s Constitution and state statutes grant the governor significant powers over the fate of individuals sentenced to death,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement Tuesday morning. “Consequently, the governor has the authority to hit the ’pause’ button for executions in Washington.”

However, Ferguson said his office will continue to represent the state when death-row inmates file challenges to their convictions or sentences with the federal courts. Currently, there are four such cases before the federal courts, he said....

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, in a written statement, said the legal ramifications of Inslee’s “reprieve policy” appear limited and that state law remained unchanged. However, he said in the short term it is likely to cause more delays, expense and uncertainty. “A moratorium alone will not resolve the issues raised by the Governor,” Satterberg said. “Let’s have an informed public debate and let the citizens of Washington decide if we should keep capital punishment in our state.”

The death penalty has come under fire in Washington state for a variety of reasons, including what some have termed inconsistencies in when it is sought. For example, in the case of Green River Killer Gary L. Ridgway, King County prosecutors gave up on capital punishment in exchange for his cooperation in providing detectives details that helped solve dozens of open murder cases. Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder in 2003 and was sentenced to life in prison.

State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, has repeatedly introduced legislation to ban the death penalty Of the governor’s moratorium, Carlye said, “It’s a profound shift. He has opened a legitimate conversation. … It sets in motion a legitimate and genuine public conversation.”

But he said the moratorium would not likely spur legislative action this year, noting that last Friday was the cutoff for non-budget-related bills to make it out of committee. “In 2015, we will ask the public to join us in this conversation,” said Carlyle, who will push for a bill then.

Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, chairman of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, disagreed with Inslee’s decision, calling it “shortsighted.”

“I think that is going off on his own and is certainly nothing the Legislature has authorized,” Padden said, noting that Inslee had not consulted him. “I question it, I really do,” Padden said of the moratorium. “To victims it’s the wrong message. The relatives who have suffered the deaths. They have gone through 10 years or more of waiting. ... For the governor to unilaterally take that away I think is wrong.”

Cal Coburn Brown, the last person executed in the state, died by lethal injection in September 2010 for the 1991 murder of Holly Washa in SeaTac. Jonathan Lee Gentry, sentenced for the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Cassie Holden in Kitsap County, is expected to be the next inmate in line to be executed.. Last month, the state Supreme Court rejected a petition for release filed by Gentry’s defense team. Gentry just filed another appeal, based on DNA testing.

Cassie Holden’s father, Frank Holden, said Tuesday he was angry at Inslee and devastated by his decision. He said he spoke with the governor for the first time Monday night when Inslee called to tell him about the moratorium. “There wasn’t much of a discussion. There wasn’t much of a chance for input. He had this thing all planned out,” Holden said, adding that the only thing he was able to tell Inslee was that he was disappointed in his decision.”

“I’ve waited 26 years for justice to happen and now it’s not going to happen because of him. It went through every court system possible,” Holden said, speaking from his business in Pocatello, Idaho. Holden said he thinks about his daughter every day; she would now be 37. “After he told me what he was doing it was nothing compared to the death of my daughter, but it was up there,” Holden said.

Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge said Tuesday morning he is disappointed by Inslee’s announcement and its potential impact on Gentry’s case. Hauge said he could “see an end in sight” for the Gentry case, because after more than 20 years the man had exhausted most of his appeals. “If ever there was a case that warranted the death penalty, it’s the case of Jonathan Gentry. This is exactly this is what the statute was meant to address,” Hauge said.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said Inslee is not be the first governor in the nation to oppose the death penalty. Last year, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper granted a reprieve to an inmate who killed four people at a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant in 1993 after finding the state’s death penalty system to be “imperfect and inherently inequitable,” according to The Denver Post. Dieter said the move means that the inmate won’t be executed while Hickenlooper is governor.

The full text of Governor Inslee’s remarks announcing his execution moratorium can be accessed at this link.

"Eric Holder makes case for felons to get voting rights back"

The title of this post is the headline of this new Washington Post report on the latest policy advocacy by the US Attorney General concerning criminal justice reform. Here are the notable details:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday called on states to repeal laws that prohibit ex-felons from voting after their release from prison, urging reforms that could allow millions more former convicts across the country to cast ballots.

In a speech at Georgetown University Law Center, Holder said: “It is time to fundamentally reconsider laws that permanently disenfranchise people who are no longer under federal or state supervision.” Current laws forbidding felons from voting make it harder for them to reintegrate into society, he said.

Holder said that current laws forbidding felons from voting make it harder for them to reintegrate into society. He pointed to a recent study, which showed that felons in Florida who were granted the right to vote again had a lower recidivism rate. “These restrictions are not only unnecessary and unjust, they are also counterproductive,” Holder said. “By perpetuating the stigma and isolation imposed on formerly incarcerated individuals, these laws increase the likelihood they will commit future crimes.”

Holder does not have the authority to force states to change their laws, but his request could influence the debate to restore voting rights. His appeal is part of a broader effort currently underway by the Justice Department to reform the criminal justice system, which U.S. officials say often treats minority groups unfairly.

The attorney general said that after the Civil War, laws that prohibit ex-felons from voting were a way for post-Reconstruction states to keep blacks from casting ballots. Today, an estimated 5.8 million Americans are not allowed to vote because of current or previous felony convictions. Of those, nearly 38 percent are black.

The Justice Department said that 23 states since 1997 have enacted voting-rights reforms. They include Nebraska, Nevada, Texas and Washington state.

The Justice Department said that 11 states, including Florida and Kentucky, restrict voting rights for ex-felons. Holder said that 10 percent of Florida’s population is disenfranchised.

Voting-rights activists are trying to change the law in that state to make it easier for “returning citizens” to vote. The push could become a campaign issue in Florida’s gubernatorial election this year. In Kentucky, a bill to restore felon voting rights to those not convicted of certain lascivious or violent crimes gained momentum last month in the state legislature. “These laws deserve to be not only reconsidered, but repealed,” Holder said.

There is even more of note in the full speech given today by AG Eric Holder at Georgetown University Law Center, the text of which is available here. I now have to go teach, so I will not be able to comment further until late tonight, but here are parts of the discussion of voting rights referenced above:

These laws deserve to be not only reconsidered, but repealed. And so today, I call upon state leaders and other elected officials across the country to pass clear and consistent reforms to restore the voting rights of all who have served their terms in prison or jail, completed their parole or probation, and paid their fines. I call upon experts and legislators to stand together in overturning an unfortunate and outdated status quo.

And I call upon the American people – who overwhelmingly oppose felony disenfranchisement – to join us in bringing about the end of misguided policies that unjustly restrict what’s been called the “most basic right” of American citizenship.

I applaud those who have already shown leadership in raising awareness and helping to address this issue. Later today, this conference will hear from Senator Rand Paul, who has been a leader on this matter. His vocal support for restoring voting rights for former inmates shows that this issue need not break down along partisan lines.

Bipartisan support will be critical going forward because, even in states where reforms are currently taking hold, we need to do even more. And we need to make sure these positive changes are expanded upon – and made permanent.

If you like paternalism and hate permissive freedoms and big business...

At about the 2:20 mark of the clip linked above, Kennedy explains he is a "a good liberal Democrat" who "does not like big business" and fears that this new industry will start selling lots of products that people will want to buy with THC in it. And just after the six-minute mark, Kennedy explains that he is "worried about the future of our country" because the permissive environment created by marijuana legalization might lead to stressed kids thinking they should consider using marijuana "which might in the short run make them feel better but in the long run will cost them and our country."

Though it is dangerous easy to make fun of big government paternalists like Kennedy, I am truly sympathetic to his concerns and I am glad he is giving voice to reasonable anti-reform views. But I also think he fails to recognize (1) that big business can actually do a lot of good when incentivized to develop and market "safer" vice products that people would otherwise get from the black market, and (2) that pot prohibition (especially with its inevitable big-government criminal-justice support system) ends up costing a lot of kids in both the short run and the long run.

That all said, I am glad this debate is going on in a variety of media forums. I am also glad to see, as evidenced by this local article from Florida, that for some parents with ill kids, supporting marijuana reform is actually a better way to be paternalistic in the healthy version of that trait:

Several efforts to legalize medical marijuana are gaining momentum in both Florida and Georgia. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are proposing bills that would legalize a different form of cannabis, giving medical patients an alternative treatment. And in November, Floridians will be able to vote in a statewide referendum.

Medicinal marijuana has yet to gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and opponents argue more tests and studies need to be done proving its medical benefits. Yet there are parents willing to take a chance on this alternative form of medicine with their children, saying it's their last hope.

In December of 2013, Cathy Klein, along with thousands of volunteers worked feverishly to collect enough signatures to get medical marijuana on Florida's November ballot. Now, two months later she says, "I know in my heart it's going to be legalized." Nearly 700,000 signatures collected and validated, the decision is now in the hands of Florida voters. At the same time, state lawmakers in both Florida and Georgia are working towards finding their version of a solution for sick patients.

In Georgia HB 885, known as "Haleigh's Hope" would utilize academic medical centers in state, allowing them to study marijuana in a controlled clinical setting. Monday, Florida State Representatives Jeff Clemens and Joe Saunders held a press conference supporting the Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act, which would create a medicinal marijuana program that allows access to cannabis for medical treatment. It would also regulate when and how it can be cultivated, dispensed, and used.

House Bill 843, Klein says is a light at the end of the tunnel. Her 9-year-old son Sean endures several seizures every single day. "I am very excited," said Klein. "That is our golden ticket right there. That is what we're after, is Charlotte's Web for Sean."

The measure would legalize an extract of a cannabis strain known as Charlotte's Web. Proponents say it reduces seizures in children with severe forms of epilepsy. "It makes me tear up to think about it," said Klein. "To have a day where he doesn't have seizures would be so huge."

Florida Governor Rick Scott has opposed the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes in state. Some opponents say it's dangerous and addictive. Still, parents like Klein say they're willing to take a chance. "I don't remember his personality anymore," said Klein about her son. "He's been on seizure medications for so long. It would just be nice to get my child back."

"The Illusory Eighth Amendment"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new article by John Stinneford now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Although there is no obvious doctrinal connection between the Supreme Court’s Miranda jurisprudence and its Eighth Amendment excessive punishments jurisprudence, the two are deeply connected at the level of methodology. In both areas, the Supreme Court has been criticized for creating “prophylactic” rules that invalidate government actions because they create a mere risk of constitutional violation. In reality, however, both sets of rules deny constitutional protection to a far greater number of individuals with plausible claims of unconstitutional treatment than they protect.

This dysfunctional combination of over- and underprotection arises from the Supreme Court’s use of implementation rules as a substitute for constitutional interpretation. A growing body of scholarship has shown that constitutional adjudication involves at least two distinct judicial activities: interpretation and implementation. Prophylactic rules are defensible as implementation tools that are necessary to reduce error costs in constitutional adjudication.

This Article contributes to implementation rules theory by showing that constitutional interpretation, defined as a receptive and non-instrumental effort to understand constitutional meaning, normally must precede constitutional implementation. When the Supreme Court constructs implementation rules without first interpreting the Constitution, the rules appear arbitrary and overreaching because they do not have a demonstrable connection to constitutional meaning. Such rules also narrow the scope of the Constitution itself, denying protection to any claimant who does not come within the rules. The only way to remedy this dysfunction and provide meaningful protection across a broad range of cases is to interpret the Constitution before implementing it.

Federal judges give California two additional years to deal with prison population problems

As reported in this AP article, "federal judges on Monday gave California two more years to meet a court-ordered prison population cap, the latest step in a long-running lawsuit aimed at improving inmate medical care." Here is more about the latest chapter in the long-running federal litigation that made it to the Supreme Court a few years ago and that continues to impact California's criminal justice system in profound ways:

The order from the three-judge panel delayed an April deadline to reduce the prison population to about 112,000 inmates. California remains more than 5,000 inmates over a limit set by the courts, even though the state has built more prison space and used some private cells.

"It is even more important now for defendants to take effective action that will provide a long-term solution to prison overcrowding, as, without further action, the prison population is projected to continue to increase and health conditions are likely to continue to worsen," the judges said in a five-page opinion scolding the state for more than four years of delay.

California has reduced its prison population by about 25,000 inmates during the past two years, primarily through a law that sends lower-level offenders to county jails instead of state prisons. It also has spent billions of dollars on new medical facilities and staff, including opening an $839 million prison medical facility in Stockton last fall.

Yet in its latest ruling, the special panel of judges tasked with considering the legal battle involving overcrowding said the state has continually failed to implement any of the other measures approved by the panel and the Supreme Court that would have safely reduced the prison population and alleviated unconstitutional conditions involving medical and mental health care. The judges said the delays have cost taxpayers money while causing inmates to needlessly suffer.

However, immediately enforcing the population cap would simply prompt the state to move thousands more inmates to private prisons in other states without solving the long-term crowding problem, the judges said. Given that choice, they adopted a proposal outlined by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration that it can reach the population cap by the end of February 2016 through steps that include expanding a Stockton medical facility to house about 1,100 mentally ill inmates and freeing more than 2,000 inmates who are elderly, medically incapacitated, or who become eligible for parole because of accelerated good-time credits.

The judges said the state also has agreed to consider more population-reduction reforms in the next two years, including the possible establishment of a commission to recommend reforms of penal and sentencing laws.

Brown said the ruling was encouraging. "The state now has the time and resources necessary to help inmates become productive members of society and make our communities safer," he said in a statement.

Brown's administration said the alternative would have been to spend up to $20 million during the fiscal year that ends June 30 and up to $50 million next fiscal year to lease enough additional cells to meet the court order. With the delay, Brown said the state can spend $81 million next fiscal year for rehabilitation programs that would otherwise be spent to house inmates.

Inmates' attorneys had wanted the judges to require the state to meet the population cap by May. "We're very disappointed," said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office that represented inmates in the crowding lawsuit. "We believe that there are substantial constitutional violations continuing right now, which result in prisoners suffering and dying because of prison overcrowding."...

Republican state Sen. Jim Nielsen, who once headed the state parole board, called the court order "tragic" and said it would endanger public safety. He blamed Brown, a Democrat expected to seek re-election this year, and the court for what he called a "disastrous new system that will result in the early release of many serious and violent inmates." The state should instead increase capacity in prisons and jails while investing in rehabilitation and early intervention programs, Nielsen said in a statement.

UPDATE: This Los Angeles Times article suggests that this latest federal court order might grease the path toward California finally creating a sentencing commission. Here is how the article begins:

Talk of a sentencing commission to review whom California sends to prison and for how long helped Gov. Jerry Brown win a two-year grace period from federal judges who want crowding reduced to a safe level. But there is no official move by the governor's office or Legislature to create one.

Brown's office was quick to point out Monday's federal court order giving the state until early 2016 to reduce crowding notes that the state only "will consider the establishment of a commission to recommend reforms of state penal and sentencing laws." Spokesman Jim Evans noted that was not a "promise" to create such a commission.

The proposal for a sentencing reform came from Senate leader Darrell Steinberg(D-Sacramento), who included it in a September 2013 letter to the federal judges supporting Brown's request for more time to deal with crowding.

February 10, 2014

New York Times editorial makes pitch for "Mercy in the Justice System"

The New York Times published this notable editorial today calling for a serious fix to the broken federal clemency system. Here are excerpts:

The constitutional provision that gives the president virtually unlimited authority to grant clemency was not an afterthought. The founders understood very well that there could be miscarriages of justice even under the rule of law. By allowing the president to commute unjust sentences or pardon deserving petitioners who had served their time, they sought to ensure that the workings of the courts could be tempered with mercy.

Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Lincoln, and Truman viewed the clemency process as a central mission of the office. But the concept of mercy went out of fashion by the 1980s, when the country embarked on a mandatory sentencing craze that barred judges from exercising leniency when it was clearly warranted and placed the justice system almost entirely in the hands of prosecutors. As a consequence, even first-time offenders were largely viewed as beyond redemption.

These laws drove up the prison population 10-fold and filled the jails with young, low-level drug offenders who were confined far longer than their offenses warranted. They also created a large and growing class of felons, who are trapped permanently at the margins of society by postprison sanctions — laws that bar them from jobs and housing, strip them of the right to vote and make it difficult for them to obtain essential documents like driver’s licenses.

The perpetual punishment model of justice has had far-reaching consequences. Politicians stayed as far away from clemency as they could, fearing that voters would view them as soft on crime. Meanwhile, at the Justice Department, the clemency process — which had been a cabinet-level responsibility — fell under the authority of prosecutors who seemed to view even reasonable lenience as a threat to the prosecutorial order. The time required to handle clemency applications went from months to years; the backlog grew; the stream of mercy that had once flowed began to dry up.

The clemency system, in other words, is in a state of collapse. The Justice Department admitted as much last month, when the deputy attorney general, James Cole, asked the criminal defense bar to help the department find suitable candidates for clemency among the many thousands of people who were casualties of the mandatory-sentencing era....

The Justice Department’s sudden interest in the clemency problem is good news, but asking defense lawyers for help is a haphazard approach. What’s needed is wholesale reform of the department’s pardon office, which has proved itself ineffective and incompetent, partly because the current process relies on the department to evaluate its own work.

One sound idea is to create a clemency review panel outside the Justice Department, perhaps as a part of the executive office. Mr. Obama could form an advisory board, or reconfigure the pardon office to include defense lawyers, sociologists and other experts who would bring a broader perspective to the issue. The goal would be to give the president unbiased information that would enable him to exercise fully this important aspect of executive power.

"'Furiosus Solo Furore Punitur': Should Mentally Ill Capital Offenders Be Categorically Exempt from the Death Penalty?"

The title of this post is the title of this new Note by Emily Randolph now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Rather than continuing to use mental illness as a mitigating factor in determining sentencing of the capital offender, this paper argues that the Eighth Amendment’s protection from cruel and unusual punishments should be extended to cover capital offenders who suffer from debilitating mental illness. More specifically, if a convicted offender has a medically diagnosed mental disorder as outlined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition or other similar standard for psychological evaluation, he or she should be exempt from the possibility of the imposition of death as a punishment. This paper discusses the Supreme Court cases of Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2004), Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007) and Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), and how to extend the Court's reasoning in those cases to cover mentally ill capital offenders.

Registered sex offender makes case against sex offender registry

Guy Hamilton-Smith, a registered sex offender and law school graduate who has so-far been denied the opportunity to become a member of the bar, has this new op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader under the headline "Sex-offender registry misguided thinking." Here are excerpts:

I am a sex offender. I know well the tremendous power of those words. In 2007, I pled guilty to possession of child pornography.

Nothing here is meant to defend what I did or to minimize the gravity of my actions. I had a major problem with pornography, and I was far too deep in denial and too scared to reach out to anyone. Help eventually came when my girlfriend discovered child porn on my computer and went to the police. I was then and remain grateful to her for taking that step.

As I went through the legal process after my arrest, I developed a keen interest in the law, and a sincere desire to advocate on the behalf of those who are hated, who are lost, and who are forgotten. With luck, I managed to win acceptance to law school despite my conviction. I worked harder than I'd ever worked in my life, because I knew I'd have a lot to do to overcome my past. I did well in school, graduated, secured a job at a law firm after disclosing my past, and applied to take the bar exam. Recently, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that I will not be allowed to take the bar exam until I am no longer on the sex-offender registry, which will be another 18 years from now.

But the point I want to make is not about me. It isn't about my case. I am not here to say whether the court's decision was right or wrong. The principles at play are much larger than me.

Strange as it may sound coming from a felon and a sex offender, I believe in the necessity of punishment. How else, after all, are people supposed to make amends for the harm that they cause? ... I believe in many ways that my life was saved by virtue of my arrest. I am sensitive to the fact that my crime, and the crimes of others on the sex offender registry, are serious. I do not mean to denigrate the plight of victims, as I was also a victim at one point in my own childhood.

My point, rather, is simply this: punishment that becomes unmoored from considerations of proportionality, redemption and reintegration becomes poison, and we — society, victims and perpetrators — become diminished by it.

Nowhere is this more evident than the sex-offender registry. Those who find themselves constituents of the registry are routinely and uniformly denied the same second chance afforded to so many other criminal defendants after they have served their sentences.

The impetus behind the registry is the popular belief that sex offenders always commit new sex crimes. That view, however, is at odds with data from the Department of Justice and others....

I know that I am not a sympathetic figure by virtue of my crime. I know that I can never change the past or undo the things that I have done. My hope here is that we can have a discussion in this country that is long overdue — namely, what it is that we hope to achieve from our system of criminal justice.

"Fewer prisons — and yet, less crime"

The title of this post is the headline of this lengthy new piece by Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson. The piece highlights the work of one GOP state legislator and details that Michigan's recent reductions in its prison populations has not been followed by a significant crime increase. Here are excerpts:

Americans are weary of paying for prisons. After stuffing more and more people behind bars for more than two decades, the vast majority of states, including Michigan, have taken steps in recent years to reduce both the number of people they imprison and the length of time offenders remain incarcerated.

As prison populations fall, moreover, crime rates are following suit. Nobody has proved a causal relationship between the two trends, but the fact that some of the biggest reductions in crime have occurred in states that slashed their inmate populations most dramatically has debunked the presumption that public safety depends on lengthy sentences and stingy parole policies.

States that spent the 1980s and ’90s building more and bigger penitentiaries have found a better return in programs designed to divert offenders from prison, and smooth re-entry for those who’ve served their time. Politicians on the front lines say the accompanying shift in voter attitudes has been nearly as startling as the thaw in public sentiment toward same-sex marriage.

State Rep. Joe Haveman, a Holland Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee and has made sentencing reform a quietly messianic crusade, tells fellow lawmakers worried about looking soft on crime that voters understand that locking up more offenders is a dead end. “This movement wouldn’t be taking place if the people of this country didn’t realize we’ve made some mistakes,” Haveman says. “I come from the second-most conservative district in the state and the third most conservative county in the country,” Haveman says, “and nobody’s saying I’m wrong about reducing our prison population.

“This isn’t just good policy,” he adds, “this is where the public wants us to go.”...

In a study released last year, the Pew Center for the States reported that Michigan’s rate of incarceration plummeted 12% between 2007 and 2012, to 441 prisoners per 100,000 residents. During the same five-year interval, reported crime dropped 17%, mirroring a national decline.

It’s hard to pin either trend to a single factor, but corrections experts point to Michigan’s relaxation of its notorious “650-lifer law,” which for two decades mandated a life prison sentence for anyone convicted of possessing more than 650 grams of cocaine or heroin. In 1998, then-Gov. John Engler signed bills permitting lesser sentences for future drug offenders and allowing those already serving life terms for drug offenses to seek parole.

Michigan’s change — the amended law allowed 650-lifers to seek parole after 20 years — was a modest one. But it anticipated a nationwide retreat from the draconian drug penalties that many states put in place during the 1970s and ’80s, setting off a slow but steady decline in the percentage of state prisoners incarcerated for possessing or selling drugs.

Michigan corrections officials also credit a decrease in the number of offenders sentenced to prison for all crimes, a slight increase in paroles, and changes in parole supervision that resulted in fewer parolees being returned to prison for minor parole violations....

Haveman, who spearheaded the passage of a 2012 bill that allows more juvenile offenders to expunge their criminal records if they stay out of legal trouble [is] working to revive a state sentencing commission that would be empowered to propose a new, data-driven scheme of criminal penalties modeled on best practices nationwide. But Haveman’s fellow Republicans remain fearful of going too fast, especially in an election year.

Last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, Haveman introduced legislation that would allow Michigan inmates already serving life sentences for crimes that they committed as teens to seek new sentences consistent with the court’s decision.

But state Attorney General Bill Schuette insists that only juveniles sentenced since the high court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama are entitled to the relief provided by the justices. Last week, Haveman’s Republican colleagues in the House agreed, adopting his bill only after the provision authorizing parole hearings for current juvenile lifers had been stripped out....

Haveman, whose western Michigan district is ground zero for the region’s Dutch Christian Reformed conservatives, is an unlikely champion for corrections reform. A former executive director of the Holland Home Builders Association, he credits the late state Sen. William Van Regenmorter, an Ottawa County conservative who earned national recognition for his advocacy on behalf of crime victims, with sparking his interest in criminal justice and prisons.

But Haveman says he’s been equally influenced by relationships that he and his wife have formed in the course of mentoring paroled inmates in a re-entry program sponsored by their church. That experience, supplemented by Haveman’s visits with corrections workers and inmates at 31 of Michigan’s 32 correctional facilities, convinced Haveman that he had a lot in common with many of those behind bars.

“I certainly was a dumb teenager, and I made mistakes,” Haveman said. “But if I’d grown up with the policing and enforcement policies that are in place today ... well, I’m not sure I’d be in the state Legislature.”

February 9, 2014

As reported in this local article, headlined "Nebraska Supreme Court ruling could affect 27 teen murder cases," late last week the Nebraska Supreme Court resolved how the SCOTUS Eighth Amendment ruling in Miller concerning juve LWOP sentences would be applied in the Cornhusker State. Here are the details:

The Nebraska Supreme Court issued precedent-­setting decisions Friday that gave hope to 27 prison inmates serving life terms for murders they committed as juveniles. Nebraska's high court ruled that three Omaha men who were convicted when teenagers were unconstitutionally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. While the Supreme Court upheld their murder convictions, it ordered that all three be given new sentences....

The three inmates will return to Douglas County District Court to be resentenced under a law passed last year that allows sentences from 40 years to life. The new law also requires judges to consider factors that could mitigate the youth's responsibility....

Although the Nebraska court ruled largely in favor of the inmates on the constitutional issues, it rejected arguments that sought to remove life as an option during resentencing. Nor was the court in unanimous agreement on all of the issues involving juvenile killers. In a dissent, two of the judges said the U.S. Supreme Court's decision should not apply to inmates who long ago lost their direct appeals....

Nebraska has 27 inmates serving life for homicides committed when they were younger than 18. The oldest is Luigi Grayer, 58, who was 15 in 1970 when he killed an Omaha woman....

Assistant Attorney General James Smith argued that Nebraska's sentencing law didn't violate the Miller ruling because the juveniles were sentenced to life in prison, not life “without parole.” Under Nebraska's system, such inmates would have to get their sentences reduced to a term of years by the Nebraska Board of Pardons before earning parole. Having to first win executive clemency is not the same as parole, the high court ruled, rejecting the state's argument. In other words, a life sentence effectively means life without parole....

The second pivotal question before the court was whether the Miller decision applied to inmates whose convictions had already been upheld on appeal. Because the high court found that the Miller ruling resulted in a “substantive” change to how juvenile killers must be sentenced, it found that the ruling applied retroactively to Mantich. The Nebraska judges quoted from an opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court, which also determined that juvenile killers should get new hearings.

Via How Appealing, here is additional coverage of these rulings and links to the decisions:

Recognizing the modern mental health realities of modern punishment

In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof has this poignant discussion of the mental health issues that are often a central aspect of modern crime and punishment matters. The piece is headlined "Inside a Mental Hospital Called Jail," and here are excerpts:

The largest mental health center in America is a huge compound here in Chicago, with thousands of people suffering from manias, psychoses and other disorders, all surrounded by high fences and barbed wire.

Just one thing: It’s a jail. The only way to get treatment is to be arrested.

Psychiatric disorders are the only kind of sickness that we as a society regularly respond to not with sympathy but with handcuffs and incarceration. And as more humane and cost-effective ways of treating mental illness have been cut back, we increasingly resort to the law-enforcement toolbox: jails and prisons.

More than half of prisoners in the United States have a mental health problem, according to a 2006 Justice Department study. Among female inmates, almost three-quarters have a mental disorder.

In the jail here, some prisoners sit on their beds all day long, lost in their delusions, oblivious to their surroundings, hearing voices, sometimes talking back to them. The first person to say that this system is barbaric is their jailer.

“It’s criminalizing mental illness,” the Cook County sheriff, Thomas Dart, told me as he showed me the jail, on a day when 60 percent of the jail’s intake reported that they had been diagnosed with mental illness. Dart says the system is abhorrent and senseless, as well as an astronomically expensive way to treat mental illness — but that he has no choice but to accept schizophrenic, bipolar, depressive and psychotic prisoners delivered by local police forces.

People are not officially incarcerated because of psychiatric ailments, but that’s the unintended effect. Sheriff Dart says that although some mentally ill people commit serious crimes, the great majority are brought in for offenses that flow from mental illness....

A few data snapshots:

• Nationwide in America, more than three times as many mentally ill people are housed in prisons and jails as in hospitals, according to a 2010 study by the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center.

• Mentally ill inmates are often preyed upon while incarcerated, or disciplined because of trouble following rules. They are much more likely than other prisoners, for example, to be injured in a fight in jail, the Justice Department says.

• Some 40 percent of people with serious mental illnesses have been arrested at some point in their lives.

In the 1800s, Dorothea Dix led a campaign against the imprisonment of the mentally ill, leading to far-reaching reforms and the establishment of mental hospitals. Now we as a society have, in effect, returned to the 1800s....

In 1955, there was one bed in a psychiatric ward for every 300 Americans; now there is one for every 3,000 Americans, the 2010 study said. So while more effective pharmacological treatments are theoretically available, they are often very difficult to access for people who are only borderline functional....

Taxpayers spend as much as $300 or $400 a day supporting patients with psychiatric disorders while they are in jail, partly because the mentally ill require medication and extra supervision and care. “Fiscally, this is the stupidest thing I’ve seen government do,” Dart says. It would be far cheaper, he adds, to manage the mentally ill with a case worker on the outside than to spend such sums incarcerating them.

"Can Deserts Be Just in an Unjust World?"

The title of this post is the title of this interesting new essay now available via SSRN authored by the always interesting Michael Tonry. Here is the abstract:

The problems of “just deserts in an unjust world” received little attention before the widespread revival of support in the 1970s for retributivist theories of punishments. The problems are two: whether deep social disadvantage should be recognized as an excusing or mitigating defence in the criminal law, and whether it should be recognized as an appropriate basis for mitigating the severity of punishment. Most legal analysts oppose recognition of social disadvantage defences. Most retributivist philosophers recognize the difficulty of the problem but waffle about appropriate responses. The few who write about it oppose mitigation of sentences.

Those views fail to acknowledge the existence of social science evidence on human development that makes clear that many offenders offend for reasons for which no plausible case can be made that they are morally responsible. Formal excusing and mitigating defences, and the appropriateness of deep disadvantage as a justification for mitigation of punishment, should be recognised.